⁴ Did you experience so much for nothing?—if it really was for nothing.^(A)

⁸ Be on your guard, so that you do not lose what we^[a] have worked for but may receive a full reward.^(A)

³² But recall those earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings,^{(A) 33} sometimes being publicly exposed to insults and afflictions and sometimes becoming partners with those so treated.^{(B) 34} For you had compassion for those who were in prison, and you cheerfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you yourselves possessed something better and more lasting.^{[a](C) 35} Do not, therefore, abandon that boldness of yours; it brings a great reward. ³⁶ For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what was promised.^{(D) 37} For yet

³⁹ But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost but among those who have faith and so preserve our souls.^(G)

² through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain.^(A)

²⁰ For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the^[a] Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first.^{(A) 21} For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was handed on to them.^{(B) 22} It has happened to them according to the true proverb,

and,

⁴ For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit^{(A) 5} and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come^{(B) 6} and then have fallen away, since they are crucifying again the Son of God to their own harm and are holding him up to contempt.^(C)

²⁴ But when the righteous turn away from their righteousness and commit iniquity and do the same abominable things that the wicked do, shall they live? None of the righteous deeds that they have done shall be remembered, for the treachery of which they are guilty and the sin they have committed, they shall die.^(A)